This episode caps a season full of twists and turns, and starts without the usual credit roll, straight to the scene where we left off last week.

Brody has Akbari’s blood on his hands, and he tries to clean up the mess by hiding the body behind the desk. He takes Akbari’s gun and exits, and just as his car is leaving the premises, guards appear to chase him down. Brody holds a gun to the driver’s head and escapes.

Carrie calls Saul to tell him Brody followed through with the mission, but Saul is suspicious. She tells him to confirm the extraction plan so she and Brody can get out alive.

Brody meets Carrie in a public park and her plan is to take them to the safehouse where Saul will determine what happens next. Javadi confirms that Akbari is dead, and then says he is now in charge of the manhunt for Brody. He needs him arrested by tomorrow morning, but Saul denies knowledge of Brody’s whereabouts. “The longer he eludes us, the weaker I look, and the less chance I have of being chosen to replace Akbari,” Javadi says, claiming he can at least protect Carrie if Saul gives up intel.

Saul hangs up and Dar Adal says he would give them up, even after what Brody managed to do. “Saul, it’s your last full day as director. You might want to take your foot off the gas,” he tells him. Saul disagrees and wants to initiate the extraction plan.

Carrie and Brody arrive at the remote safehouse, and Brody washes up, staring at himself in the mirror and grappling with what he’s done. He has considered how his father would have been heartbroken over all of his actions.

Saul calls Carrie and tells her to be ready; he’s getting them out. Brody asks what happens after they return home, because he never thought he’d make it this far. He brings up the doctor in Caracas who called him a cockroach – he could never die. He says this act of “redemption” wasn’t that, because you can’t redeem one murder by committing another.

Carrie tries to convince him otherwise, and finally tells him she’s four months pregnant “from our time at the lake.” She happens to believe one of the reasons she was put on this earth was so that their paths would cross, no matter how crazy that sounds. Brody says he doesn’t think that sounds crazy at all. It sounds like the only sane thing left to hold on to.

Guess that’s what’s happening next, right? A new Brody family.

Apparently not. Expecting the extraction plan, Carrie and Brody exit the safehouse. Armed men instead show up and take Brody away. Carrie begins to fight and asks to speak to Javadi, but a guard says Javadi is aware. It dawns on her that Javadi won’t help. She calls Saul, who is in the dark and storms into a meeting with Lockhart and Dar Adal, and demands to know what’s happening.

Lockhart alerted Javadi on the President’s authority. “You’re out, Saul. I’m the director now,” he says. Saul tells Dar Adal he should have stonewalled until Brody was safely out of Iran. Dar Adal calls it a sentimental idea that our people come before the mission. “Brody arrested is better for us than Brody back in America,” Dar Adal says, “and better for Javadi’s chances to head the IRGC.”

Carrie is taken to see Javadi. She needs to see Brody, but Javadi says he was sentenced by a military tribunal to death by hanging. He is declared an enemy of the state. “It’s out of my hands, Carrie,” he says. The execution is scheduled for that night. He tells her they pulled off the plan, all the more so if he dies. He tells her everyone now sees Brody through her eyes, including himself. That’s a victory.

She wants two minutes to speak with Brody, and gets them. She starts to tell him she’ll get Saul on this, but Brody says he wants it to be over. No one can help him now, but he’s okay. He asks her not to be there tonight, whatever happens. They’re rushed by a guard, but spend their last seconds together in silence.

Carrie and Fara’s uncle go to the site of the execution. Brody emerges and a red noose is tied around his neck. He’s lifted before a chanting crowd as Carrie watches tearfully against the fence. She climbs the fence and screams his name until he sees her.

In a complete surprise to the series, Brody dies.

(There’s the nagging feeling that he can’t really be dead, that there is some way he probably made it out alive. But all signs in this episode at least indicate that he is gone.)

Four months later, the episode cuts to a seaside – it looks like the Mediterranean. Saul is with Mira, having croissants for breakfast. She reads the front page of the paper: Iranian officials offered inspectors full access to their nuclear weapons program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. “It’s your crowning achievement,” she tells Saul. He will return to Washington for the commemorative ceremony, despite how the CIA treated him. Saul has tried repeatedly to contact Carrie, but never heard back.

Ironically, Carrie’s more in with the CIA than ever. She’s agreed to go to Istanbul to run Javadi as station chief. She asks Lockhart for a star for Brody at the ceremony. Lockhart disagrees. “No one’s judging him. I’m just not memorializing him on the walls of this building,” Lockhart says.

Carrie tells Quinn it’s impossible now for her to be a mother. She’ll be a great station chief. Quinn brings up his own regrets as a dad, and tells her the kid is a gift.

Saul and Dar Adal meet for breakfast and discuss their futures. Saul invites Dar Adal to the private sector where he can triple his salary, and says he’ll never return to the CIA if Lockhart comes begging. Dar Adal goads him that he would because he misses the gang.

Carrie’s father and sister Maggie visit her at home bearing baby gifts. Carrie reveals she’s moving to Istanbul right after her daughter’s born. And she’s going to give up the baby. “I don’t feel love. All I feel is scared,” she says. Her dad says he’ll take the baby. Carrie breaks down in tears because she’s not only scared, but extremely sad.

At the commemorative ceremony, Lockhart praises the employees who are receiving a star as America’s heroes. Saul approaches Carrie and congratulates her on Istanbul. “You won,” Carrie tells him, and wishes him well in New York. They say goodbye one last time, and she watches him leave the building.

Before leaving for the night, Carrie approaches the wall of stars and draws one more, for Brody.

Readers, what did you think of the season finale? It appears Saul and Brody’s fates have been decided. Are you shocked? Should Carrie keep the baby and raise her alone? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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